Lighting - Need Help

Have you checked for continuity between the pick-up rollers and the plug?, same thing with the roof section? Tried to power any of the bulbs with a 9V battery or low (12?) track voltage? Does the common side also have continuity?

BobbyD,

No I did not but I will definately do that and will report back. I will need to get myself a new meter. I have a super old one that is pretty much shot. I will report back.

I am assuming the I just need to touch the ends of the meter to the ends of the bi plug bulbs. That would tell me the bulbs are good, correct?

First off, heat in the attic didn't kill the bulbs, they'll survive much more than that.

Truthfully, if you have to tinker with the cars, I'd be going for an LED lighting upgrade.  It's not expensive or difficult, and you'll have flicker-free lighting that's much more even, adjustable intensity, and the current draw will be less than 10% of the incandescent bulbs.

Does anyone produce a drop in LED lighting kit?

Did you test the new bulbs to see if they work?  Can you test the old bulbs in a car that has working lights?

ironman1 posted:

Does anyone produce a drop in LED lighting kit?

 Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit

All that you really need to do is take the old board on the cars, solder LEDs onto the old light connections, and add a resistor to the red wire that plugs into the trucks.  It probably wouldn’t take any more time than installing a new board.  If it’s running on 18 volts I’d you let me know how many lights would go in I can calculate the type of resistor you would need to complete the job.  This way would also be much cheaper than having someone else install new lights or even buying a kit to install yourself.

John,

I will email you with question.

Kevin

RICKMA46,

That's a next step but that's like those Christmas Tree light, plug and play. I am going to reach out to John and Evan and more than likely go LED. One and done.

K

PSU1980 posted:

RICKMA46,

That's a next step but that's like those Christmas Tree light, plug and play. I am going to reach out to John and Evan and more than likely go LED. One and done.

K

My email is evancihlar@railroadinginamerica.net if you would like to email me.

Thanks guys for the information. The kit looks great although at $20/car a little pricy. Is it possible to just add one LED strip/car with a resistor to the red wire as mentioned by Evan? Or am I missing something?

I purchased a role of LED strip lights a year ago with the intention of trying an upgrade. Could these be used, they're 12V with just adding a resistor? Please see attached image.

Thanks!

---

ironman1 posted:

Thanks guys for the information. The kit looks great although at $20/car a little pricy. Is it possible to just add one LED strip/car with a resistor to the red wire as mentioned by Evan? Or am I missing something?

I purchased a role of LED strip lights a year ago with the intention of trying an upgrade. Could these be used, they're 12V with just adding a resistor? Please see attached image.

Thanks!

You could definitely use the LED strip! At 18v input with 12 volts needed you would need a 100 ohm resistor from my calculations.  This would be a red-violet-yellow-yellow color pattern.  Let me know if you need any help!

It's worth a try. Thanks!

Evan Cihlar posted:

All that you really need to do is take the old board on the cars, solder LEDs onto the old light connections, and add a resistor to the red wire that plugs into the trucks.  It probably wouldn’t take any more time than installing a new board.  If it’s running on 18 volts I’d you let me know how many lights would go in I can calculate the type of resistor you would need to complete the job.  This way would also be much cheaper than having someone else install new lights or even buying a kit to install yourself.

Well, that will provide light, but there's a couple of issues with that approach.  You don't get variable intensity, flicker-resistance.

If you're going to run on AC, one way to avoid damage is to have half the LED's one polarity, and the other half the other polarity on the strip.  This allows the LED's that are lit to protect the unlit ones from excessive reverse voltage, they're only rated to around 5V reverse voltage.

You will also be using more power with all the LED's in parallel vs. the strips that have three in series for each group. 

 

Of course, I knew that there would be a trade off. Its never just real simple.

I had these cars and for some reason the quality on these were not the best. The switches did not work in half of he cars so I by passed them and they worked fine. I also found broken wires to the main board. The fixes were easy but just time consuming.

John and Team,

Thanks for all the great information. Lots of options

For ease of installation without bothering learning much on what is what with leds, the kits are the way to go. With Radio Shack now gone and prices for bulbs at Auto parts stores being so high priced, I'll be slowly moving to led also, even on postwar items (I still prefer the look of incandescence though). The way I see it, the led kit is about paid for in or around ten years.(three-four bulb changes) The #1 thing is that leds use DC voltage, don't try ac only. As John stated, reverse voltages of ac can do damage, a diode must protect them (or a Light Emiiting Diode; an L.E.D ). (Diodes are a one way "valve", they can stop an ac wave direction, to get one direction. This formed DC is lumpy, pure DC is not. A capacitor acts like a mini battery, smoothing the lumps by saving up excess power when it's strong, and feeding power when the power lumps get weaker. #2 never exceed thier max voltage at all. They usually light far below that max. The resistance is mostly tayloring the max supply voltage to the lesser needs of the leds, keeping it under the led's max. The kits make use of capacitors to get flicker free lights. Some custom fits I've done, lit for near two minutes after power was shut off. That's how little power an LED actually uses. If you are handy, making an led system isn't hard. It is a learning experience, and is cheaper overall too. But the convenience of the kits is worth the price as well IMO. If you don't have continuity from rollers to board, the kit won't fix that. Start there. As a side note, continuity is a good way to check for bad bulbs. It beats trying to see a wire break inside them. I've received boxes of bad bulbs that looked fine, but found no continuity between leads. A rule of thumb: a 6v bulb fed 3v will burn half as bright and last for twice as long. Feed it 12v and it burns twice as bright but lasts half as long. There are some excess heat issues with some swaps to watch out for too, but swapping bulbs isn't usually too radical if care is used. (14v-24v at low watts would be close enough for most applications)

Just noticed the image I attached, didn't. Maybe I'll skip the electrical, keep my incandescence bulbs & stick to painting & building.

  I've had composer and photo issues today too. Likely they are preparing for an update of some kind. Try again. (My last post was not written as a "solid block of text"; I know how hard that can be to follow for tech reads. That is just how it posted itself)

  The led route isn't hard. It may seem so at first, but it really isn't. You already figured out a better place to pull the power, I bet you could get a better handle on it quickly.(most solid state electronics switch on the ground leg fyi )

 In kit form it's nearly as simple as two new wires to connect. 

To assemble a driver from scratch might be cheaper than one pack of bulbs too. ($4-$8 just for a 2- pack here. Near a 100% jump in price just since the corner RS closed)

  Usually it just takes the right way of someone stating the same old stuff a little differently and it all clicks together suddenly

Thanks for the encouragement. I really like the kit solution. Very simple to install but with over 20 cars to modify I'll probably buy one set & give it a try.

ironman1 posted:

Thanks guys for the information. The kit looks great although at $20/car a little pricy. Is it possible to just add one LED strip/car with a resistor to the red wire as mentioned by Evan? Or am I missing something?

I purchased a role of LED strip lights a year ago with the intention of trying an upgrade. Could these be used, they're 12V with just adding a resistor? Please see attached image.

Thanks!

Your photo came up "Image Not Found". Is it something like this? ($8 on Amazon)

If so, you can get the circuit boards from the kit by themselves for $20 a pair and simply hook each one to an appropriate-length snipped from the strip and your pickup roller feed (no resistor required). Bonus: you can customize the brightness of the strip.

---PCJ

Or buy a few single led , enough for a mistake or three, and some general purpose diodes, a variety pack of resistors maybe two, and a couple of capacitors, and play "mad scientist".

  Start with low volts, high resistance. Lower resistance to see results. Raise resistance again, raise voltage, lower resistance watching results, repeat till you burn it up.

  Now you know what to expect from that LED# for under a buck lost. You know which resistor to use for the job too, order a pack of those. You know enough to make more sense of some parts of the spec sheet too.

Cheap, fun, educational, and confidence building.

You WILL find a use for a single lit one when done too   Deciding on a narrow or wide focused beam is another user consideration for buying fyi. But as simple as narrow for headlight or sconce, or a wide for "room" lighting. Or not being so picky as long as there is light

Before you balk, look close at some parts costs at supply houses and eBay. The individual parts are not expensive or numerous per circuit.

If you're as cheap as I am at times, you'll even salvage some of the parts from about anything with a cord heading for a garbage can.

(Avoid the TV sets.. there is a high voltage line with a cap in there that is no joke. It does not need to be plugged in to bite you. It looks like a sparkplug wire.  At least watch a Youtube video on safely bleeding the charge to a ground)

The kit prices are still a time saving bang for the buck imo... If you can spare the extra few coins

Doing 20 slow, I think prototypically you'd have some variance in light intensity from lounge to coach to dome to diners, sleepers, etc., anyhow. We just tend to like it evened out for models. 

LED's are so cheap nowadays, you can afford to experiment.  I keep a few around for upgrades and project...  OK, I keep several thousand around, but they're really cheap in bulk, lots of times I can get 100 for $3-4.

Fell behind with the replies. My image not found is similar to PCJ's picture.

A lot of directions to go in. I have a feeling if I buy the complete kit I'll like the ease of installation & the results so much I'll figure a way to afford them. Plus, saving time is money well spent.

I typically buy my rolls of LED's overseas for anywhere from $2 to $4 each.  Here's a 5 meter roll of Warm White LED's for $1.94/ea.  Note that if you order more than two rolls, the free shipping goes away, so I just order two at a time.

5 Meter Reel of Warm White LED's